Been working out in the garden today. We’ve been chopping down some more of the large fir trees that have been attempting to take over the back part of the garden. Dad and I had made good in-roads into getting rid of them some time back but it’s taken until now for me to continue to do the others.

It’s was a lovely day though – very springy and about 14 degrees centigrade. Daisy came and did the shredding while I weilded the chainsaw. Currently the garden is still in the getting-worse-before-getting-better stage, although the hope is once we’ve replaced the aging fence along the back and we’ve planted some nice shrubs, the garden will start to look smarter again.

When chopping down one of the trees we found a perfectly formed nest. It was really well constructed and very solidly built. We suspect a Robin. This is, of course, the problem with pulling down the trees in our garden – It doesn’t seem very wildlife friendly. We will be replacing the trees with easier to handle shrubs and we’re going to choose them carefully to be most wildlife friendly. However, there will still be no where much for the birds to nest. For that reason, we have a bunch of bird boxes that we’re putting up around the garden on the few beech trees that we’re leaving in place. We put them up today, so I hope it’s not too late for the birds to find them and move in.

[caption id="attachment_480" align="aligncenter" width="339" caption="Tit box in Situ"]
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I was hoping that maybe we could cut the lawn today (using my newly fixed mower! woohoo!) but we were just too busy with the trees. Our mower has been out of action since the middle of last summer after the handle broke. This weekend I actually managed to get around to making a new handle (better to fix something than get a new one, of course). You can see my “interesting” bit of woodwork below. Believe it or not, it’s more comfy than the old plastic handle.

Two days ago, Daisy said my hair looked “uneven”. I’d already been called “the wild man of Borneo”. So, this morning, she cut my hair. Now I look less like a hippy-folkie and more like a sensible insurance salesman from suburbia.

Talking of before and afters, I am very pleased with the transformation of Gail, our bald and insipid looking hen. Gail and her mate, Claire, have moved out into the main run, although separated from the golden girls (Branche, Dot and Rose) by a fence. They both look very healthy now. Check for yourself how she looked when we got her in October and how she compares now in March.

It was a sad moment early in January when Stumpy died. She was the last surviving chicken from our first batch of chickens that introduced us to the wonderful world of smallholding. She had a sour crop and our best efforts with the drugs seemed to clear that up, but there was clearly another issue. Up until lthe last few hours, she seemed quite content and Daisy and I thank her for all the eggs and pleasure she gave us. She is now buried in the garden with her three friends.

We’ve got two more chickens! They were rescued from the cold having escaped the lorry that took their colleagues to the slaughter house. Many didn’t make it, but these two did – found huddled close to the heating system of the battery barn.

They’re still nameless at the moment. The one on the left has a broken spur that we’re applying TCP to. The one on the right is, as you can see, “oven ready” – that’s to say, very few feathers. She’s rather cold so she’s currently acclimatising to the cold in a separate pen that’s in our lean-to.

Tonight Daisy and I (well mostly Daisy) have been preserving all the garlic that we dug up a while ago. Although you can leave garlic to dry such that it will keep for around 6 months, by preserving it you clear up all the garlic hanging around the place as well as making it last a great deal longer.

To do this, we stripped all the garlic of its skin. By letting it soak in water overnight the skins came off much easier.

Then we bashed it up in a mini blender…

… and put it in jars covered in olive oil. It’s the sort of stuff you can buy at the super market as ‘cheat’s garlic’

Preservation of the glut is all part of being a gardener or smallholder. It’s not always the most rewarding part and can be quite labour intensive, but it’s always worth it when you’re still chomping through your home grown produce in the depths of winter.

Yesterday morning Puffy was put to sleep on the recommendation of the vet. She had developed sour crop and we took her to the vet expecting to get her put on antibiotics and anti-fungal medicines, but the vet had a feel around and said that she wasn’t in good condition and had probably been ill for some time. He said the sour crop was probably a symptom of another more serious disease and he recommended putting her to sleep.

I felt bad the rest of the day as I felt I’d been a little rushed into the decision. However, she’s at rest now, buried next to Blondie and Vicious.

That leaves Stumpy all on her own. I hope she doesn’t get too lonely before we can go and get some more chickens.

Today I harvested my garlic. The whole veg patch slumped when the garlic was ready.

I have put it to dry in a strange wall thing that’s part of our house. The wall comes in useful come the garlic drying time (see pictures below). The garlic will stay there a couple of days (assuming no rain) before being brought inside to continue drying. Once dry it should last 6-8 months… well, I might eat it all before then!

I have put together a vlog (a video blog) about the experience. I will post it here when I’ve uploaded it.

It’s been a bad day today. I’m not superstitious but what’s happened today is almost enough to make one superstitious.

So, we decided, having felt the bottom of our chicken called Vicious, that we must take her to the vet again. Her tummy was very tight but seemingly no reason. She wasn’t in a lot of distress but was drinking huge amounts of water, as she had been for a long time. Strangely another of our chickens, Blondie, was also drinking lots of water and did appear to want to pass something more than she could.

So, we booked an appointment at a vet (a different vet to last time – one that we’d been told were nice and caring).

In the morning, Blondie didn’t come out of the house. She wasn’t right. Daisy saw her trying to pass an egg – she was egg bound again.

So, we started to get a box together ready to take them down the vet, but when we returned to the house, Blondie was dead. It’s likely she had a heart attack while trying to force out the egg. I quickly dug a hole and we paid our respects to her, before we rushed off to our appointment with Vicious.

The vet was, as we were told, very nice. She felt around and reckoned Vicious was egg bound. I had read (on T’internet) that egg bound chickens only last a couple of days (see Blondie as an example) so how Vicious had lasted for over a month is hard to say. The vet pulled out some really strange bits of egg from inside her, but couldn’t reach the other egg. She gave her some drugs to help move the egg along and then we waited for the drugs to take effect.

But there was no effect. Vicious just slept and began to look more ill. So, the vet tried again. By now Vicious was getting weak with the effort. She could barely stand up. So it was with a deep sorrow we decided it was best to have her put to sleep.

We brought her home in her box and buried her next to Blondie in the garden.

It’s so sad to see our first chickens pass on. Although it’s likely I couldn’t have done anything I still feel it’s somehow my bad husbandry. I’m sorry girls. RIP

So, I was wrong. I’m a rubbish husband to my chickens. Vicious was still poorly today and so I decided to give her a better examination only to find that she is egg bound after all. The poor girl’s been egg bound for 2 days now and I hadn’t noticed. I feel so stupid.

With the help of Daisy we fed her a good dose of olive oil to help lubricate her insides. She wasn’t at all happy and when we put her into the house she had taken a real disliking to us and couldn’t even look at us. Awww.

If she’s still poorly tomorrow morning I might try to get her to have something calcium-rich and then she’s going in the bath for a warm soak. This will help her to relax the muscles around the vent and possibly pass the egg. Then I’ll create a box for her into which she will go where it will be dark and warm, lined with straw. This will help her to concentrate on passing the egg. If there’s still no luck by later in the day, I think some oil will need to be passed directly into the oviduct and some gentle massaging of her undercarriage to help the egg out.

Worst case scenario is to break the egg inside and pull it all out, but that can cause all manner of problems of its own, so that’s really last resort.

So, I’ve been looking after the chicken all day now. This morning I built a small run out of the run that came with our chicken house. It was much too small, so I built a large one but we kept the parts to make up the smaller run. However, it may have been too small for 4 chickens to live in, but it makes an ideal hospitalisation ward!

I put Vicious (that’s her name because she’s top of the pecking order) in the run and gave her some fresh water, some fresh grit and some food. She didn’t eat the food, looked suspiciously at the grit but continues to drink lots.

My sister, who’s kept chickens before, came around at lunchtime. Vicious was a little perkier than this morning and was walking slowly around the cage. She was able to give a good old flapping and squawking when she was caught for another crop fondle. The crop doesn’t appear to hurt her and it’s not as large as it was yesterday. However, it’s still quite full of fluid.

I read on T’internet that sometimes yoghurt can help with an infection, so I cycled up to our local shop to find they didn’t have any natural stuff. So I had to cycle into town and bought two pots of Yeo Valley Organic Pro-Biotic natural yoghurt. I gave her a tub with some in and she tried the tiniest amount but didn’t seem impressed. From what I’ve read online chickens love yoghurt. But it is new to her so perhaps she’s a bit wary. Anyway, I’ve left it with her and hopefully she’ll try some more. It might help her out.